What Is The Waffle House Index?

posted by iHeartMEDIA Staff -

Have you heard of the Waffle House index? Well it's an informal way the Florida Department of Emergency Management uses to measure how quickly a community will recover after a major storm.

Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate started using it when he was the head of FEMA.

Waffle House has a really good risk management system in place for their restaurants. This gives FEMA an indication of how badly hit an area is if a cluster of Waffle Houses are unable to reopen.

The Waffle House Index has 3 colors to grade the impacts. Green means the restaurant has reopened and are serving a full menu, Yellow means the restaurant has reopened but it is serving a limited menu, and Red means they are shut down totally.

The Tweet below was a sample from Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

So now you know what the Waffle House Index is. Next time a storm hits, see if the Waffle House lights are on.